Love In Bloom In Public Housing

Love is in bloom in public housing these days. Cupid and his bow are getting an unexpected helping hand from the Chicago Housing Authority`s crackdown on squatters in one of its high-rise buildings.

For the last three weeks, tightened security, including new 24-hour guards, have prevented anyone who does not have a proper identification card from entering a Rockwell Gardens building on the West Side. And the only way to get that is to be listed on a lease.

As it turns out, the new policy not only has helped curb the gang warfare that has terrorized residents, but it also has led to an upsurge in the building`s marriage rate. Men who have been sharing their sweethearts`

apartments either have to flee or make their presence legal, which means matrimony.

Shy bachelors who insist on resisting the call of holy matrimony have become virtual prisoners in the apartments they illegally occupy.

For decades, welfare and public housing policies discouraged single mothers from taking a husband, lest they lose benefits and leases. CHA Chairman Vincent Lane, however accidental, has found a policy that encourages at least the formation of traditional families.